Forza Horizon 5: General Discussion

[breyzipp]

Finally I feel I'm not the only who thinks so. Road layout makes no sense and it feels like there is 95% of that same type of curvy road that also probably is very wide. I like curvy roads (especially narrow) but I also enjoy straight roads and realistic road layout (what TDU series had)

I get what you mean but to be honest FH maps have never had a very realistic layout to begin with. Given the size of the maps, I honestly think it’s great that FH roads are a bit more curved than they might be in real life. And for me that’s fine, I even like it. When you look at the rain forest in FH3 below, you could say a lot of roads don’t make any sense either.

Below is a part of Google Earth roads somewhere central in Mexico. Heck, even here you could say the roads don‘t make sense. And I get it that most corners are there because of elevation changes, the same might be true for FH5 (there are a lot more hills and cliffs than just the volcano and canyon.

Still, I do share your sentiment to a certain degree though. Maybe the roads look so curved because the map is so big. When I look at yesterday’s stream and the freeroam footage from the rocky coast, sand desert and living desert, I was actually surprised the roads were quite straight forward and the world felt huge and wide open (especially in both desert biomes when driving on asphalt).

In the end, some of the most beautiful driving roads have always been the ones on the side of the map. For example the coastal road in FH2, or in FH3 the road from Byron bay through the rain forest towards the desert (or the other side of the map driving on the Gold Coast road). In FH4 I absolutely love the entire road from Edinburgh via the coast towards the player house in the southeast corner of the map. Or the road leaving Ambleside towards the north and further east towards Edinburgh.

I’m sure FH5 will have similar beautiful roads on the borders. The canyon road i already know will be absolutely stunning. The road on the south border through the rain forest and driving over that huge viaduct looks great too. And on both coastlines I think we’re good as well (we already saw a part of the rocky coast road in Let’s Go! Episode 5, it sure has my stamp of approval).

I’m honestly more enthusiastic about the map, the vistas and the roads than I’ve ever been before. The hype for me is on par with FH3, probably even bigger.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

This is what I was thinking as well. None of the roads seem like the make sense, and on top of that, there's not enough smaller, technical roads.

I'm at the point where I'm not really excited for FH games anymore, I'm just a little bit curious.

PG's world building is a little puzzling to me. They are always pretty but never particularly feel like real places. I think part of it is that they aren't very rational within their own world. Take for instance the highway in this map (or the one in FH3 or FH4). Typically, in the real world, highways link either multiple population centers or trade hubs or some combination of these things. In this map, the highway more or less just exists. It starts and ends in basically the middle of nowhere...it's not really plausible. I get that the primary design goal for the map is gameplay, but part of the reason that GTA Maps (not to mention the last few NFS maps) always seem to feel "lived-in" is that they seem to make sense within their own context...and that makes them stronger in my opinion. If you're going to have an open world, IMO, it should be one that encourages immersion.

 

[Turboteg90]

 

[breyzipp]

Yesterday’s Let’s Go! episode 5 without any voice overs:

Supra at player house and in freeroam:


Evo X in dirt race:

 

[Populuxe]

This roundabout at the west end of the freeway makes no sense to me from a highway engineering perspective. Three highways with two directions each means six routes. Five work. The sixth doesn’t. The bottom left image shows how the roundabout should be designed and the last two show how it would work with that small change.

 

[Ak1504]

Is this what we are doing when everything else is very good in a games series so we have nothing to complain about ? And now we are looking for "unrealistic" traffic lanes stuff, highway positions ect to find anything else to complain ? 🤔 There are a couple posts about this and i'm find this a bit strange ? Sry I'm just wondering 🤓

For me the map and roads in Horizon games are a huge playground in first place... I think theres no need that every meter tarmac have to make 100% sense and need to be realistic as possible like iRL... ☺️

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Is this what we are doing when everything else is very good in a games series so we have nothing to complain about ? And now we are looking for "unrealistic" traffic lanes stuff, highway positions ect to find anything else to complain ? 🤔 There are a couple posts about this and i'm find this a bit strange ? Sry I'm just wondering 🤓

For me the map and roads in Horizon games are a huge playground in first place... I think theres no need that every meter tarmac have to make 100% sense and need to be realistic as possible like iRL... ☺️

Details matter.

 

[Populuxe]

Is this what we are doing when everything else is very good in a games series so we have nothing to complain about ? And now we are looking for "unrealistic" traffic lanes stuff, highway positions ect to find anything else to complain ? 🤔 There are a couple posts about this and i'm find this a bit strange ? Sry I'm just wondering 🤓

For me the map and roads in Horizon games are a huge playground in first place... I think theres no need that every meter tarmac have to make 100% sense and need to be realistic as possible like iRL... ☺️

You probably haven’t read too many of my posts if you think I do nothing but complain about Horizon. There aren’t too many people who love this game more than I do. It’s my favorite game and has been since the first one came out in 2012. I am massively excited for the next installment. But being a fan doesn’t mean closing my eyes to any oddities I discover. Horizon has always had roads that make no sense. I still buy, play, and love the games.

 

[ykiki]

This roundabout at the west end of the freeway makes no sense to me from a highway engineering perspective. Three highways with two directions each means six routes. Five work. The sixth doesn’t. The bottom left image shows how the roundabout should be designed and the last two show how it would work with that small change.
View attachment 1073682

At first I was thinking the "oddball route" is for u-turns, then I looked at your red marking more closely and..OH!!!! I see what you mean.

 

[eran0004]

Below is a part of Google Earth roads somewhere central in Mexico. Heck, even here you could say the roads don‘t make sense. And I get it that most corners are there because of elevation changes, the same might be true for FH5 (there are a lot more hills and cliffs than just the volcano and canyon.

I don’t think the curves per se is what makes the roads nonsensical, in fact if you’ve got some tough terrain then the curves make perfect sense.
What doesn’t make sense in the FH5 map is that the roads don’t lead anywhere, they all just seem to connect at random, with the exception of the highway which is fairly well connected.

What I would have done is to first connect the towns together, so you have some sort of main road network established, and then you can add in all the small roads. The main roads would look something like this in my mind:

Yellow roads are the main roads, providing direct connections between the towns and creates a framework for connecting the smaller roads to. The red road is the highway and the dashed red/yellow route indicates that, rather than terminating at each end of the map, the highway instead turns into a main road and loops back around.

Having a framework of main roads like this would make the map more realistic (because the roads now have a function, they don't just exist for their own sake) and also easier to navigate.

On the Google Earth screenshot you took you can see a similar structure, with a main road meandering up the hills and then a bunch of smaller roads connecting to it.

 

[breyzipp]

This roundabout at the west end of the freeway makes no sense to me from a highway engineering perspective. Three highways with two directions each means six routes. Five work. The sixth doesn’t. The bottom left image shows how the roundabout should be designed and the last two show how it would work with that small change.
View attachment 1073682

You make a very valid point here in your 6th picture and indeed the best solution for it. I didnt notice it yet but indeed that roundabout doesnt seem to make much sense (like you showed in your 6th picture, there is no route going from left to upper right.

 

[ShawnPhillips]

Is it any different than usual, though? This is the norm I thought when it comes to the cover art - It's released down the line.

Every previous game has had the cover car revealed along side the game announcement. FH4 even had a full scale Lego model of a Senna at E3 when the game was announced.

 

[ImaRobot]

Every previous game has had the cover car revealed along side the game announcement. FH4 even had a full scale Lego model of a Senna at E3 when the game was announced.

Yeah, that's right, actually totally forgot about that. Wonder if this is all it's going to be this time.

 

[SomeGamer2021]

Just wondering, was there Soft/Medium/Hard compound tires in the gameplay videos? I always thought of putting Hard tires on Vintage muscle cars once FH5 comes out so I can get some handling without removing a lot of speed.

 

[Nielsen]

Roads making sense is not a big concern of mine when it comes to Forza Horizon. That said, the sudden sharp turns on FH4’s motorway are completely unnecessary, especially because of how they make top speed runs much harder to pull off.

The most important thing to me is I can get anywhere I want quickly without the temptation to take short cuts through fields and wilderness. FH3 is really bad in that regard. Almost equally important is that most points of interest aren’t close to the map edge, because it makes the space feel confined. FH4 is really bad in that regard. It seems PG has learned something on both points for FH5.

 

[ShawnPhillips]

Just wondering, was there Soft/Medium/Hard compound tires in the gameplay videos? I always thought of putting Hard tires on Vintage muscle cars once FH5 comes out so I can get some handling without removing a lot of speed.

They did not show anything regarding Tires, Though there was a twitter post from a dev about a month ago mentioning some cool new tire stuff.

Soft/Medium/Hard compounds is more of a Motorsport thing, so I see little point in having that in Horizon as Pit stops aren't a thing in Horizon.
I like using the Vintage Racing tires on old Muscle cars in FH4.


One thing I did notice that I have not seen many talk about. There were 4 catigories for Rims, when all previous games had 3.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

They did not show anything regarding Tires, Though there was a twitter post from a dev about a month ago mentioning some cool new tire stuff.

Soft/Medium/Hard compounds is more of a Motorsport thing, so I see little point in having that in Horizon as Pit stops aren't a thing in Horizon.
I like using the Vintage Racing tires on old Muscle cars in FH4.


One thing I did notice that I have not seen many talk about. There were 4 catigories for Rims, when all previous games had 3.

I noticed the 4th category too. If I were to guess, I'd say that they've moved off road wheels to a separate category and probably added more of them.

I really like the vintage tires in FH4, but annoyingly they are not able to be fitted to a lot of old cars. I can't put them on my Porsche 914, for example.

 

[McLaren]

Every previous game has had the cover car revealed along side the game announcement. FH4 even had a full scale Lego model of a Senna at E3 when the game was announced.

That wasn't really possible this year though, as E3 was a virtual-only event. If they had actually been at LA Convention Center, I'm sure the AMG-One would've been on display as that seems likely to be 1 of the cover cars.

 

[YoungRhombus]

A bit of a topic change here but something I thought about earlier: Something that would help me feel more inclined to explore the map would be if the "car delivery" option wouldn't turn you around the opposite direction half the time when you respawned in the new car.

Speaking of which, I don't think anyone has mentioned that feature yet. I'd like to see it return for convenience's sake but I won't be too upset if it doesn't. That's what player homes/festival locations are for.

-----

Also, it was a good ways up the thread now, but as far as the discussion about the "Horizon formula" goes, I think it's fairly good as it is. In my eyes, Forza Horizon 4's main issues were not to do with the formula itself but with certain new or missing features that fell short of the mark. It seems they are rectifying these issues so hopefully Horizon 5 will be a much more consistent game in terms of quality.

 

[UKMikey]

Not sure whether any of this was covered in previous videos but posting it just in case.

 

[Terronium-12]

A bit of a topic change here but something I thought about earlier: Something that would help me feel more inclined to explore the map would be if the "car delivery" option wouldn't turn you around the opposite direction half the time when you respawned in the new car.

There are no words to describe how utterly annoying this is. Why is it a thing?

As for my .2 cents on the Horizon formula, I'll be honest with you: what we have now works, however, it could absolutely take a turn for the better. I do not understand how, 15 years later, TDU still does things better than any other open world racing game. Car-specific HUD clusters, discoverable dealerships, houses with an actual purpose (Horizon is closing in on this, and The Crew kinda-sorta misses the ball here but is better than Horizon), and clothing.

This is why I'm excited for TDU to finally return. Assuming KT doesn't screw with the formula (and it already sounds like they are) TDU absolutely nailed the lifestyle aspect (we don't talk about 2, unless it's the casino ) and I've yet to see any game in the genre try and overtake it. There's no way you can expect me to believe that Atari was able to do all of that on the game's budget, yet Playground Games cannot.

 

[UKMikey]

 

[YoungRhombus]

This is actually pretty dang close I'd say. If the G29 Z4 M40i makes it to this game (I assume it will), then I'm sure it will have a similar engine sound. I hope so, considering how horrible/inaccurate its FH4 sound was:



I mean, it's somewhat accurate for the M4 GTS it shares its sample with, but not for literally any of the other cars they slapped this sample onto.

 

[breyzipp]

I found all the locations of the E3 gameplay demo and marked them on the map for people interested. And that straight dashed line in the first jungle freeroam (showing off the campaign) is just that big spanning bridge. I believe in one of the Let’s Go! Episodes someone even asked if it was the highway and Mike Brown answered no, indeed it isn’t part of the highway.

E3 gameplay video just for reference:


All clips from the gameplay trailer marked on the map in order:
(sorry for lowered res, I started from the 4K version of the map but as soon as I edit something with my 4 year old iPad the resolution drops)
(and ignore the black striked out thing in the center, I accidentally put a red line there and already saved and closed, couldn’t undo it anymore)
For numbers 1,2,3,6 and 7 the route is accurate. Always driving in the direction away from the accompanied tekst.
For numbers 4,5,8 and 9 I found the exact streets but it’s so small to indicate or the clip jumps between different players I simply put a circle around the area.

Just in case you wonder or forgot, in the gameplay trailer you actually get a very good view of that big overhang bridge in the jungle.

 

[AOS-]

A bit of a topic change here but something I thought about earlier: Something that would help me feel more inclined to explore the map would be if the "car delivery" option wouldn't turn you around the opposite direction half the time when you respawned in the new car.

I feel like when they programmed the spawning of your car in freeroam, every road has a default "direction" of where to point the car. If you already happened to be pointing in that direction, you won't notice a thing.

When you have a point of interest laid down, and then change cars, the car will spawn in the direction your navigation points you.

What I'd like to see if the game spawning you in the exact spot you changed cars rather than spawning you to the closest road.

I would also love it if the game could spawn you directly on an event's location, even if there is no road associated with it. Some notable examples in FH4 are the air strip and beach drag race events. It's a tad annoying I have to drive a bit to actually get to that spot.

 

[breyzipp]

It's a tad annoying I have to drive a bit to actually get to that spot.

How dare PG force us to need to drive a bit in an open world free roam car game. Such blasphemy!

 

[RodSk8Dude]

Oh.. I wonder if they might add penalties to this game. You know, instead of respawning us in last place if we slightly miss a checkpoint.

 

[willbsn13]

Some has very nicely divided the map into biomes for anybody interested.

 

[phillgt2002]

Oh.. I wonder if they might add penalties to this game. You know, instead of respawning us in last place if we slightly miss a checkpoint.

I completely forgot they did that; it always struck me as one of the more awful design choices when it comes to racing in the game.

 

[breyzipp]

Check out time index 39:10 of the video below, that aged quite well. 😎

FYI it’s Fraser the audio guy talking about recording audio of cars in FH4 Series 9 update, that’s a video from 2 years ago but it very related to FH5 Let’s Go! Episode 3 (the audio episode)